<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Rescue of Athena One by MrToddWilkins (orphan_account)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25760053">The Rescue of Athena One</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/MrToddWilkins'>MrToddWilkins (orphan_account)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Jeannieverse [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Six Million Dollar Man</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon, Bionics, Canon Divergence, Cape Canaveral, F/M, First Contact, Manned Spacecraft Center, NASA, Novelization, Skylab, The greater good, Training, infodump, the Tau Cetians live</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:06:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>996</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25760053</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/MrToddWilkins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It was no ordinary space mission:it couldn’t be ordinary,not when the mission would feature the first American woman astronaut. Kelly Woods would fly to the Skylab space station on a mission to attach a telescope to the orbiting outpost,as well as to test how women would react to the conditions of space flight. And she was trained by no less than space veteran Steve Austin.</p><p>Austin’s friends,Dr Oscar Goldman and Dr Rudy Wells,had their own worries. A UFO had crashed near Edwards Air Force Base in California,causing consternation at NASA. Could they return the UFO and its mysterious crew to space?</p><p>But hours after Athena One’s launch,a micrometeoroid collided with the spacecraft. Woods reached Skylab safely,but her crewmate was injured and her spacecraft irreparably damaged. Accompanied by Dr Wells and his Apollo crewmate Frank Santelli,Steve Austin set forth on a heroic space mission. His goals: to rescue Athena One and return its crew to Earth ,and to guide the first interstellar ambassadors back to their spaceship,before time ran out. A goal which would stretch his bionic powers to their limits.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Steve Austin (Six Million Dollar Man) &amp; Kelly Woods (Six Million Dollar Man)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Jeannieverse [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1753870</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Epigraphs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men. They are far superior and always have been. Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she will give you a baby. If you give her a house, she will give you a home. If you give her groceries, she will give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she will give you her heart. She multiples and enlarges whatever is given to her. So if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of shit!</p><p>- William Golding</p><p>When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues.</p><p> - Honore de Balzac</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Letter of Colonel Steven Austin to Dr Oscar Goldman, 4 October 1973</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dear Oscar,</p><p>I write to you from the cramped interior of the Skylab simulator here at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. I've just finished up another 10 hour workday here in the module,testing out new life support equipment. It's cold in here,but I can adapt. That's one of the perks of being a bionic man.</p><p>You might ask why I'm doing this. Don't you OSI boys get the Houston scuttlebutt up in Washington? Or have you been living under a rock since spring? Then you'll know that Kelly Woods,erstwhile Columbia graduate and former trajectory engineer here at MSC,has been assigned as Jack Swigert’s co-pilot on the Athena mission to Skylab in December. That makes her the second woman,and first from America,to fly in space. Quite the propaganda victory in the Space Race,I'll tell you. </p><p>The objectives of Athena,as you may know,are twofold. One object is to attach the Orbital Cassegrain Observatory (OCO) to Skylab’s exterior so that stellar as well as solar astronomy can be conducted from the station. The other is to test how women react to the weightless environment. There’s Vostok 9,of course,but the Soviets aren’t saying much about that. The mission’ll be six weeks in duration,after which they’ll hand off to the next Skylab resident crew,as commanded by Buzz Aldrin.</p><p>Our CapCom for these tests is Calvin Billings - remember him? The 1967 selectee from Tulane who invented the dosimeters we used on 21?  He's gonna be Dick Gordon's command module pilot next summer.</p><p>Welp, I've got to go now - integrated re-entry simulation. Give Rudy my love.</p><p>Yours truly,<br/>Steve Austin, USAF Colonel  &amp;c</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Dr Goldman Inadvertently Discovers a UFO</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>October 11,1973</strong>
</p><p>When the Sun had barely risen from the high desert and the dew still clung to the mesquite trees,giving them a pearlescent sheen, that was Oscar Goldman’s favorite time of day when he was camping. The day was filled with a sense of new promise,as though the land was reborn. Here on the high plains,at the edge of the Mojave,it felt as though time had stopped. One could imagine oneself there at the dawn of the world,when the first sea creatures came upon the shores and learned to live on dry earth. As he prepared his breakfast after having washed in a nearby brook,Oscar felt young again. He tossed sausages into the fire,listening to them pop and crackle as they cooked. The smoke rose and twisted in the slight breeze.</p><p>Not too far away,John Patterson was just completing his own ablutions. The thin Manitoban DDS candidate was one of Oscar’s protégés at OSI,where he was interning while looking for a “real job” (to use his words). He was humming a song which went like this: “The roaring cannons then were plied,And dub-a-dub went the drum-a;The braying trumpets loud they cried,To courage both all and some-a. The grappling-hooks were brought at length,the brown bill and the sword-a:John Dory at length, for all his strength,Was clapt fast under board-a.“</p><p>”Where’d you learn that?”, Oscar asked.</p><p>”My grandpa. It’s a song about a pirate.”</p><p>“Hm. Well,that makes sense.” Oscar and John headed over to where their horses were grazing. “Time to ride. If we make a constant pace we’ll be at Edwards about 3. After all,we do need to be there when the Skylab crew comes back on Monday.”</p><p>They broke camp and rode into the west.</p><p>———</p><p>Soon the landscape became flatter,a sign that they were on the desert proper. Joshua trees grew in thick clumps in this area,and it was hard work to steer the horses away from potential tangles. The mountains had retreated into the distance and were now girt by what little morning fog remained. What little grass grew here was of the prickly pear variety,thick and gnarled but not too much work for their horses,strong Andalusians with an affinity for such terrain. Oscar and John were making good time as they rode. </p><p>It was nearing eight o’clock then and the Sun was shining brightly on the hills. They were,as best as Oscar could tell,north of Victorville. It seemed like they’d make good time after all.</p><p>”What do you suppose is making that noise?”, John asked. A light buzzing noise could be heard faintly against the sky. “It sounds like it comes out of the north.”</p><p>Oscar wet his lips uncertainly. “A biplane?”</p><p>”Get real,Dr Goldman. Nobody flies those anymore.”</p><p>”Nonsense,John. Plenty of people do. Private fliers,mostly. They’re just rejected by the aviation industry ‘cause they usually can’t seat more than three people. They’re also used for crop dusting and things like that.”</p><p>The buzzing noise subsided,then grew louder,then subsided again. Away against the rising Sun Oscar thought he caught a glimpse of metal. They rode on.</p><p>————-</p><p>They hadn’t ridden far when they came across the machine,or what was left of it. Smoke marked its position,where it had landed in the deep desert. Most was intact,but parts were shredded.<br/><br/>“What do you suppose it is?”, asked John.</p><p>”I don’t know,John”.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>